Murmurs: School Board Vows Not to Add More Schools to Closure Lists

SCHOOL BOARD VOWS NOT TO ADD MORE SCHOOLS TO CLOSURE LISTS: Just one day after Portland Public Schools publicly released two school closure scenarios, Portland School Board members took to the dais at an Oct. 6 meeting to share their initial reactions to the proposals. (The two scenarios, termed A and B, would shutter 14 and 11 schools, respectively.) A furious crowd booed and jeered as district leaders presented their proposals. And it was clear that board members needed more information as they asked about everything from the future of focus option schools to whether the district would issue a fiscal impact statement. In the early noise, it also appeared that some were more skeptical of the two proposals than others. Board member Michelle DePass said Portland was once full of young, big families, and that’s no longer the case. “For that reason, I think we need to do something,” she said. Meanwhile, board member Christy Splitt said she felt the scale of the closures was too vast for the moment. “It affects 24% to 27% of our students, and that’s a really big number to me,” Splitt said. It was that concern that led Splitt that night to ask the School Board to verbally commit that it would not add any schools to the closure list at the eleventh hour. That request spurred some debate, but ultimately the board agreed that if the list were modified at all, it would be to remove a building. It’s becoming clear that—despite public outcry—the board has little wiggle room to tweak the district’s proposals. “One change, one modification, one add has a cascading effect,” PPS Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong told board members.

UNIVERSAL HEALTH PLAN HEATS UP: In August, citing staff turnover and other reasons for delay, the governance board tasked with designing a staggeringly large overhaul of the Oregon health care system requested a deadline extension from September to December to deliver its final report. House Health Care Committee leaders in Salem gave the OK, but Rep. Dwayne Yunker (R-Grants Pass) saw something sketchy going on. In his view, the delay meant lawmakers, stakeholders and the media could not deeply examine the board’s recommendations before the Nov. 3 election. “I believe most Oregonians would be absolutely shocked and deeply concerned if the details of this proposal, its potential costs to taxpayers, and the circumstances surrounding the delay were receiving widespread coverage,” Yunker tells WW. And Yunker got confirmation from the Legislative Counsel’s Office that the health committee chairs lacked legal authority to delay the report. Still, the staff attorney also pointed out that the Universal Health Plan Governance Board’s materials, including drafts of the final report, are publicly available. And, after a series of shifting deadlines, it turns out the board will not get quite the extension it imagined; it is set to vote on a finalized report within days so state workers will have time to prepare the document for formal publication. Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Southeast Portland), the House Health Care Committee chair, says it’s routine to grant extensions to work groups. “The bottom line for me,” Nosse says, “is that it would be wonderful to have a health care system that is like just about everywhere else in the world, universal and not tied to employment.” He adds: “This system we have right now is terrible and too expensive, and everyone knows it.”

SDC EXEMPTION ‘SHOWS PROMISE’: A city of Portland fee exemption aimed at spurring housing development has shown early signs of success, city officials said this week. The Portland City Council passed an ordinance in June 2025 that waives system development charges—steep one-time costs paid by developers—for most new housing projects. The city now says the exemption “shows promise.” A total of 976 units have received the exemption so far and another 1,687 units are in the approval process, meaning the projects haven’t yet been issued building permits but developers have requested the exemption. A city survey of developers in the exemption process found that 80% of respondents said the exemption would have a “high” or “very high” impact in moving projects forward. Still, the exemption doesn’t come without cost; if all 2,871 units that applied for the exemption receive it, the city would forgo $51 million in revenue. And, the city concluded, the exemption “has not been enough to counter stronger forces such as construction costs and interest rates that impact the development of new housing in Portland.”

ILLINOIS GOVERNOR GIVES $100,000 TO KOTEK: Illinois governor and 2028 Democratic presidential hopeful JB Pritzker recently gave $100,000 to the reelection campaign of Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek. The billionaire public official has been feeling generous lately, gifting $38 million to Democratic midterm bids across the country, including long shots like Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa, to whom he’s contributed $1.2 million. He gave his own reelection campaign $65 million in August. But with President Trump’s record-low approval ratings driving talk of a nationwide blue wave, Kotek in deep-blue Oregon remains locked neck-and-neck with her Republican challenger, state Sen. Christine Drazan (R-Canby). Kotek has so far raised nearly $14.8 million to Drazan’s $13.4 million. Kotek and Pritzker reportedly worked closely together last year during their coordinated challenge to Trump’s attempted federalization of National Guard troops in Portland and Chicago.